Azurite Altering To Malachite

Unknown Owner

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The Perkin Sams Pocket is so named because, in the early 1980s, Houston oilman Perkin Sams bought nearly the whole pocket for his collection and thus for the Houston Museum of Natural History. There is a remarkable story of this find, and to this day you can go to Houston and see basketball-sized crystals from this pocket, preserved in pristine condition! However, since most went to the museum, very few got out to the private market, largely in the form of private placements by people involved in handling the larger quantity, one assumes. This piece ended up in the Marshall Sussman collection, where I first saw it some years ago in the mid 1990s. I bought and then sold it and got it back recently, now. To this day, it remains the most elegant example of the pocket I have seen. The pocket is characterized by this bicolor effect of malachite pseudomorphing the centers of azurite crystals, leving corners and perhaps one edge as pure azurite in the process. It is strange, but nearly all crystals from the pocket show this effect. However, the crystal habit of the pocket can most charitably be described as "blocky" and robust...usually the crystals are more squarish than anything meriting the word "elegant." This splayed, complete-all-around crystal though, with its taperig base and broad, perfect termination, is as good as it gets for the pocket for my tastes. This is a very rare chance to own a significant Tsumeb azurite from one of the few named pockets, which made an impression and are immediately recognizable amongst so many other random azurite finds here.